Unbroken Connection (23 page)

I float out of her splash zone. “I free dive.”

She draws her face into a fetching confused knot. “I not know this.”

“Hold your breath—like you were just doing.”

She strokes close to me. “In my country, we have not name for this.” She closes her eyes and licks the saltwater on her lips. “Everyone just does it.”

“In Thailand?” I haven’t seen anyone swimming or diving like Sukanda.

“No. This is not my country. I am of the Moken.”

“The Sea Gypsies in Burma—Myanmar?”

“This is what English call us.”

“How’d you get”—I motion with my head back at the boat and Max.

“I run. Twelve years old. Get to Thailand. I start in shows.” She frowns. She swims closer but doesn’t touch me. “Many men. Make good money. Now Max.” She holds out her left hand so I can see the giant cluster of diamonds on her third ring. “He buy me house.”

“And I’m too young?”

“I twenty-six. Very old not married.”

“He says you’re twenty. I say not even.”

“He thinks. He want young. An Asian woman can be any age you want.”

She’s right. You never really know if some chick is fifteen or thirty.

She lets her body brush mine. “For you this morning, I be eighteen? nineteen?” She melts under the water heading for the beach. I feel awkward as I duck dive and swim as fast as I can to keep up with her. She wades up onto the beach and throws herself down on the untouched sand.

I follow—entranced, captured, stand over her staring as she stretches her arms over her head. I drop to my knees beside her. One of Suki’s hands slinks back down, slips a Trojan packet out of her bikini top, and flips it at me.

“I moonlight. Max is too cheap. You like me?”

Freak. This is her job. And I fell for it. Every tiny sliver of bait hooked me in. I drop to my knees, pick up the condom. She’s a prostitute. This is criminal. Depraved. But she is so—

“How much you pay?” She puts her hands to the back of her neck like she’s going to untie her bikini top.

I touch her nicely toned shoulder—draw a line down her wet arm with my finger. “Sorry, Suki—no wallet.” Freak, I want her. I lean over her so I can see better when she drops her top. Leesie’s ring flashes in the sun.

“I take that.” Sukanda reaches for it.

I jerk back.

She raises up on her elbows. “I worth that easy.”

I stand and back away into the water with my hand clutching Leesie’s ring. What am I doing? It’s not like Leesie would ever know, but I would. Am I this much of a sucker? This unfaithful? Maybe those jerk missionaries were right about me. I turn around so I won’t stumble and cut my feet on the coral rocks half buried in the sand.

Sukanda follows. “I take cash, too.”

“I’m sorry—no.” I have to get away from her. She didn’t want me, but I am dying for her.

“Claude give me cash.” Her laugh sounds coarse now. “Last night very nice for him.”

It makes me sick she’s trying to play me off Claude. “And Max doesn’t care?”

“Max drunk or asleep. Come back to beach.” Her perfect, professional seductress mask slips, and I see a cold, hard businesswoman. “Give me money later.”

It tears me up that this is what she is. What her poverty, the world—men—creeps like Max, Claude, freak even me—have made her. Here is this wild beautiful sea creature spoilt. It makes me think of all those dolphins, dead and drowned in a fishermen’s net. Leesie still wears that necklace. Save the dolphins. Save the sea gypsies—Moken—save this one. Can anything or anyone do that? Leesie would claim her God can. All those girls in the bar vying for a man. Thousands more in worse conditions. Little boys, too. All that evil for some creep’s pleasure. I think Leesie’s God has an awful lot of work to do. I know what she’d say. We’re his servants. Get busy. Teach them to save themselves.

Sukanda catches up to me. “Please, Michael. You want.”

“You’re right. I want.” I’m not going to condemn her. Who am I to condemn her? I link arms with her and wade deeper, pull her along with me. “I’m just a poor dive instructor. I can’t afford you,” I lie. I want to lecture her, tell her to go straight, to leave Max. I want to kill Claude for using her. All I say though is, “I’m sorry.”

She pouts up at me. Then she’s gone, cutting through the water, not a playful porpoise or siren seductress now. She’s full-blooded barracuda.

LEESIE HUNT / CHATSPOT LOG / 12/23 1:51 AM

Chapter 25

HEROICS

MICHAEL’S DIVE LOG—VOLUME #10

D
IVE
B
UDDY
: Sukanda

D
ATE
: 12/24

D
IVE
#: 2,275

L
OCATION
: Kaw Thaung, Myanmar

D
IVE
S
ITE
: Queen Nautica lounge

W
EATHER
C
ONDITION
: hot

W
ATER
C
ONDITION
: 2’ swells

D
EPTH
: surface

V
ISIBILITY
: 100+

W
ATER
T
EMP
.: 84

B
OTTOM
T
IME
: 27 minutes

C
OMMENTS
:

All the passengers gather in the dining salon and wait for the Thai and Myanmar customs guys to make the rounds. For this trip, Captain Jean arranged to process us through customs on board. Nice, but I liked kicking around Ranong and Kaw Thaung and taking pictures of the kids in the markets. It’s going fast. Just a glance and a stamp. Everyone paid the $200 bucks entrance VISA fee to Myanmar with their invoice for the trip.

Sukanda sits perfectly still. Unusual. No laughing this morning. Her foot twitches. I go sit down beside her. She cleaned Claude out and scorns him like dirt now. She barely tolerates Max. I’m her friend. Sort of. She tells me stuff. She has a Thai passport, but it’s fake. So is her name. I don’t know her real name, her Moken name. Max thinks she’s Thai—no questions, so she couldn’t complain about going into Myanmar on this trip.

“Hand me your passport,” I whisper. She does, and I put mine on top of it and pass it up to the Thai and Myanmar officials who approach our table at the same time.

“American?” The Thai guy smiles big at me.

I nod. He stamps my exit visa in my passport, sees the maroon Thai cover on Sukanda’s passport and flips it open, stamps it, and passes the passports off to the Myanmar guy. He checks to see that the Visa stickers are affixed, stamps them, and moves on.

Suki presses her bare foot on mine. “I owe you.”

“You can give me swimming lessons.”

“Okay, Mr. Dive Instructor.”

Her and Max have been in my group the whole trip. Claude put them in his group first day, but she got it changed up. She’s brutal to him. I think he promised her a lot of money—ran out of cash but still owes her.

Anyway, the past couple days, she and Max dove in the morning with me. He’s a crap diver. Pain to have in a group. Always kicking the freaking reef. He drank all afternoon, so Suki and I buddied for the afternoon dives. She dove both night dives with me, too. She’s beautiful to watch in the water. Elegant even with all the gear on. She’s always conscious of line and movement—puts on a show for everyone down there with her. I’d rather watch Suki than the sharks. She actually swam with a school of juvie barracuda. Totally fearless.

She hasn’t offered me her services since that first early morning on Honeymoon Bay beach. Freak. I can never ever take Leesie there now. Suki thinks I’m a poor idiot who spent all his money on a ring for a girl who won’t marry him. I think that’s why she likes me. I’m pathetic. Harmless. I like hanging with her. I try not to think about her and Max behind that closed door at night. Too disgusting. And it’s her choice. She doesn’t want a Lancelot.

The customs guys stamp the last passport and leave. Max gets up from a table across the room and heads out to the bar.

Suki puts her face in her hands. She takes a deep breath, shudders as she exhales.

“Are you okay?”

“I was afraid. Thank you.” She drops her hands and smiles. “Today. My home.”

We’re cruising to the Mergui Archipelago again. Suki told me yesterday there are 800 islands in the chain. It’s the home of the Moken, Sea Gypsies who live in hand-built wood boats eight months out of the year and gather the gifts of the sea holding their breath. They are the ultimate free divers, but they are very shy. We won’t see them. But Suki will see these islands she left.

“Is this the first time you’ve been back?”

She nods. Her smile wanes. “I was so foolish.” She flicks a crumb off the tabletop. “I wish I could be that girl again in my father’s kabang, learning from my mother to weave the nets and season sandworms. I saw a magazine—stole it from another boat. I wanted the beautiful things in those pictures. I wanted to be one of those beautiful things.” Suki looks down at the gems on her fingers and wrists. She pulls them off one by one and leaves them in a glittering pile on the table. I gather them up and leave them at her room on my way to get geared up.

We dive at High Rock. It’s packed with fish again, but I’m bored. Suki and Max didn’t join us. I try to forget Suki and scout out fish for my other divers.

We don’t see Suki and Max later, either. They have dinner in their room.

I stay awake late into the night with my mind full of Leesie. It’s Christmas Eve back home. She’s sitting there with Gram, and they are talking about me. They are both worried and want me home, but they both love me and if I need to be here, so be it. Gram will wait for me to remember her and fly in for two-day visits for the rest of her life. Maybe she’ll need a nurse soon. Full-time. Leesie would help with that. She did it for her grandmother. Gram could move in with us. Or we could move in with her. I know where Gram will be in my life one way or the other, but what about Leesie? Will she be there to help?